Hiqa criticises hygiene at Rotunda and Temple St

AN inspection of Temple Street Children’s Hospital by Hiqa found red stains on surgical equipment, unclean surfaces and daily cleaning lists that indicated these areas were in fact clean.

Syringe drivers and thermometer holders were just some of the pieces of equipment that were found to have stains or dirt on them during the unannounced inspection.

And a similar inspection at the Rotunda maternity hospital also raised some serious hygiene worries, with the Hiqa officers declaring that the delivery suites were outdated and insufficient to meet rising demands.

Another finding from this report criticised the Rotunda’s safe injection practice, where they found red stains on equipment and anaesthetic medicines left in a box at the start of the day.

In Hiqa’s Temple Street report the poor condition of patient equipment hygiene on one particular ward was highlighted.

It stated: ‘The standard of patient equipment hygiene in St Patrick’s Ward was not in line with national best practice guidelines.

‘There was red staining on an integrated sharps container tray.

‘Dust and/or stains were observed on blood pressure cuffs, bedside suction catheter holders, holders for thermometers, auroscope disposable covers, an observation monitoring trolley, humidifiers, a portable suction machine, a drip stand, syringe drivers and a stainless steel trolley.

‘It was reported that the ward did not consistently have the required compliment of staff necessary for such cleaning.’

The Rotunda report also highlighted problems. It stated: ‘Multiple disposable finger-stick devices were located in a case containing a blood glucose monitor which had slight red stains’. It added: ‘Anaesthetic medications for anticipated intravenous use in Operating Theatre 3 had been drawn up at 08.15hrs on the day of the inspection as indicated by a label on a box containing these syringes.

‘It is recommended that such medications are drawn up immediately or very shortly before use in line with current best-practice guidelines.’

In relation to the failings of the delivery suites, the report said: ‘The hospital had a total of nine single delivery rooms and one five-bedded room, within the delivery suite, and three operating rooms which are not sufficient to meet increasing service demands with over 8,500 deliveries per year.

‘The delivery suite opened in 1993 so aspects of the delivery suite infrastructure were outdated.

‘Only two of the single delivery rooms had en-suite toilet facilities.

‘Only one of the single delivery rooms had an en-suite shower.

‘Modern delivery rooms should all be single patient occupancy with ensuite facilities.’ The Rotunda report highlighted the fact that they had exceeded expectations in some areas.

According to the report: ‘The hospital had exceeded the required HSE national hand hygiene compliance target of 90% and improved the uptake of hand hygiene training amongst staff which is commendable. The hospital has also impleing mented and embedded peripheral vascular care bundles across inpatient clinical areas in line with best practice guidelines.’

Master of The Rotunda, Professor Fergal Malone, said: ‘We as a team at The Rotunda take huge pride in these positive results. Keeping a building as old as ours – 260 years old – as clean as our staff do is no easy task. We manage a busy, work- hospital that operates 24 hours a day and our staff do a wonderful job of ensuring that at all times, it is kept to the highest standards of hygiene.

A statement from Temple Street said that ‘the areas visited by Hiqa... were contained within the oldest parts of the hospital’.

It stressed that these areas ‘were not deemed to meet the desirable specifications of a modern children’s hospital’ and that opportunities to improve the patient care environment were ‘somewhat limited’.

‘Temple Street is unequivocally committed to providing an environment that is clean and safe.’

It added: ‘Following on from the publication of today’s final report by Hiqa... Temple Street is in the process of amending its Quality Improvement Plan that prioritises the improvements necessary to comply fully with the standards and will be publishing this plan within six weeks of the date of publication of this report.’

‘Staff do a wonderful job’